Great American Novel: Difference between revisions
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*1960: [[Harper Lee]]'s ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]''<ref>{{Cite web | publisher = mahalo.com | accessdate = 2010-10-19 | title= To Kill a Mockingbird | url = http://www.mahalo.com/to-kill-a-mockingbird}} "Though originally dismissed, the book gathered a great deal of popularity and success throughout its lifetime, becoming the symbol of the "Great American Novel."</ref><ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2010-07-08-mockingbird08_CV_N.htm | work=USA Today | title='To Kill a Mockingbird': Endearing, enduring at 50 years | first=Maria | last=Puente | date=2010-07-08}} "It is Lee's only book and one of the handful that could earn the title of Great American Novel."</ref> |
*1960: [[Harper Lee]]'s ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]''<ref>{{Cite web | publisher = mahalo.com | accessdate = 2010-10-19 | title= To Kill a Mockingbird | url = http://www.mahalo.com/to-kill-a-mockingbird}} "Though originally dismissed, the book gathered a great deal of popularity and success throughout its lifetime, becoming the symbol of the "Great American Novel."</ref><ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2010-07-08-mockingbird08_CV_N.htm | work=USA Today | title='To Kill a Mockingbird': Endearing, enduring at 50 years | first=Maria | last=Puente | date=2010-07-08}} "It is Lee's only book and one of the handful that could earn the title of Great American Novel."</ref> |
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*1961: [[Joseph Heller]]'s ''[[Catch-22]]'' |
*1961: [[Joseph Heller]]'s ''[[Catch-22]]'' |
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*1962: [[Ken Kesey]]'s ''[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'' |
*1962: [[Ken Kesey]]'s ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'' |
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*1964: [[Ken Kesey]]'s ''[[Sometimes a Great Notion]]''<ref>Bowden, Charles. (Introduction to) Kesey, Ken. Sometimes a Great Notion (2006) Penguin.</ref><ref>Marshall, John (2001-11-16), Ken Kesey's true legacy is 'Sometimes a Great Notion', Seattle Post-Intelligencer</ref> |
*1964: [[Ken Kesey]]'s ''[[Sometimes a Great Notion]]''<ref>Bowden, Charles. (Introduction to) Kesey, Ken. Sometimes a Great Notion (2006) Penguin.</ref><ref>Marshall, John (2001-11-16), Ken Kesey's true legacy is 'Sometimes a Great Notion', Seattle Post-Intelligencer</ref> |
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*1964: [[Vladimir Nabokov]]'s ''[[Pale Fire]]'' |
*1964: [[Vladimir Nabokov]]'s ''[[Pale Fire]]'' |
Revision as of 17:50, 1 March 2012
The "Great American Novel" is the concept of a novel that is distinguished in both craft and theme as being the most accurate representative of the zeitgeist in the United States at the time of its writing. It is presumed to be written by an American author who is knowledgeable about the state, culture, and perspective of the common American citizen. The author uses the literary work to identify and exhibit the language used by the American people of the time and to capture the unique American experience, especially as it is perceived for the time. In historical terms, it is sometimes equated as being the American response to the national epic.
History
While fiction was written in colonial America as early as the 16th century, it wasn't until a distinct "American" identity developed during the 18th century that what is understood to be "American literature" began. America's identity as a nation was reflected alongside the development of its literature.
The term "Great American Novel" derives from the title of an essay[1] by American Civil War novelist John William De Forest. More broadly, however, the concept originated in American nationalism and the call for American counterparts to great British authors.
In modern usage, the term is often figurative and represents a canonical writing, a literary benchmark emblematic of what is American literature in a given era. Aspiring writers of all ages, but especially students, are often said to be driven to write "the Great American Novel". Theoretically, such is, presumably, the greatest American book ever written, or which could ever be written. Thus, "Great American Novel" is a metaphor for identity, a Platonic ideal that is not achieved in any specific texts, but whose aim writers strive to mirror in their work.
In literary parlance, the term "Great American Novel" is in reference to actual works. Although the acknowledgment is not a formal award (in contrast to a Pulitzer Prize or the National Book Award), it is considered a mark of prestige, and is thus seen as a worthwhile goal for writers to attempt.
Though the term is singular, many novels have been referred to as "the Great American Novel".
List of possible Great American Novels
At one time or another, the following works have been considered to be the Great American Novel:
- 19th century
- 1826: James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans
- 1850: Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter[citation needed]
- 1851: Herman Melville's Moby-Dick[2]
- 1877: Henry James' The American
- 1884: Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn[3]
- 1895: Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage[citation needed]
- 1899: Frank Norris' McTeague
- 1899: Kate Chopin's The Awakening
- 20th century
- 1903: Jack London's The Call of the Wild
- 1905: Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth
- 1906: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
- 1913: Willa Cather's O Pioneers
- 1918: Willa Cather's My Antonia
- 1919: Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio
- 1920: Sinclair Lewis' Main Street
- 1920: Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence
- 1925: Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy
- 1925: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby[4]
- 1926: Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
- 1929: William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury[citation needed]
- 1929: Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms
- 1929: Dashiel Hammett's Red Harvest
- 1930: William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
- 1931: Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth
- 1936: William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom![5]
- 1939: John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath[6][7]
- 1939: Nathaniel West's The Day of the Locust
- 1940: Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls
- 1940: Richard Wright's Native Son
- 1946: Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men
- 1951: J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye[8]
- 1951: James Jones' From Here to Eternity
- 1951: Jack Kerouac's On the Road
- 1952: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man[9]
- 1953: Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March[10]
- 1955: William Gaddis' The Recognitions
- 1955: Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita[11][12]
- 1960: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird[13][14]
- 1961: Joseph Heller's Catch-22
- 1962: Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- 1964: Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion[15][16]
- 1964: Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire
- 1969: Philip K. Dick's Ubik
- 1973: Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow[17][18]
- 1973: Philip Roth's The Great American Novel
- 1975: William Gaddis's J R[19]
- 1977: Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon
- 1979: Cormac McCarthy's Suttree
- 1984: William Gibson's Neuromancer
- 1985: Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West[20]
- 1985: Don De Lillo's White Noise
- 1996: David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest[21]
- 1997: Don De Lillo's Underworld
- 1997: Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon[22]
- 1997: Philip Roth's American Pastoral
- 21st Century
- 2000: Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
- 2001: Jonathan Frazen's The Corrections
- 2002: Jeffery Eugenides' Middlesex
- 2006: Cormac McCarthy's The Road
See also
References
- ^ DeForest, John (9 January 1868), "The Great American Novel", The Nation, New York, retrieved 11 October 2010
- ^ Buell, Lawrence. "The Unkillable Dream of the Great American Novel: Moby-Dick as Test Case". Retrieved 2010-10-26.
{{cite web}}
: Text "American Literary History Volume 20, Issue 1-2 Pp. 132-155" ignored (help) - ^ Brown, Robert B. (June/July 1984). "One Hundred Years of Huck Finn". American Heritage Publishing. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
{{cite web}}
: Check date values in:|date=
(help) It was called the “great American novel” as early as 1891 by the English writer Andrew Lang... ” - ^ Lavender, Catherine (June 14, 2001). "F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)". College of Staten Island. Retrieved 2010-09-22. Professor Lavender teaches history at the College of Staten Island in New York. Her handout for the unit on The Great Gatsby begins with this paragraph: "Written in 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is often referred to as "The Great American Novel," and as the quintessential work which captures the mood of the "Jazz Age."
- ^ Hirsch, Arthur (1997-11-16). "The real great American Novel: 'Absalom, Absalom!' Faulkner: His ninth novel, for its span, its revelation, its American essence, stands above all others in reaching for this literary absolute". The Baltimore Sun. Baltimore, MD. Retrieved 2010-09-21.
- ^ Dana, Gioia. "The Grapes of Wrath Radio Show - Transcript". The Big Read. The National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved 2010-09-22. Richard Rodriguez is a famous American writer. In this interview he referred to the Grapes of Wrath as The Great American Novel: "There hasn't been anything like this novel since it was written. And this is the great American novel that everyone keeps waiting for but it has been written now."
- ^ Nixon, Rob. "The Grapes of Wrath". This Month Spotlight. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2010-09-22. Nixon quotes John Springer, author of The Fondas (Citadel, 1973), a book about Henry Fonda and his role in film version of The Grapes of Wrath: "The Great American Novel made one of the few enduring Great American Motion Pictures."
- ^ Wolverton, II, Joe (January 29, 2010). "J.D. Salinger, Dead at 91". The New American Magazine. Retrieved 2010-09-22. "While a student at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, Salinger amused and annoyed his fellow students by traipsing about campus proclaiming that he would be the author of the next Great American Novel. That his Catcher in the Rye was such a book is indisputable.
- ^ Giles, Patrick (2002-09-15), The Great American Novel, Los Angeles Times
- ^ Amis, Martin, Review, The Atlantic Monthly (quoted by Powell's Books) Martin Amis is a well-known British novelist and professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester. It is his opinion that "The Adventures of Augie March is the Great American Novel. Search no further. All the trails went cold 42 years ago. The quest did what quests very rarely do; it ended."
- ^ Williams, Mary Elizabeth. "Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov". Personal Best. Salon. Retrieved 2010-09-22. Mary Elizabeth Williams is Salon's Table Talk host. She opens her review with these lines: "Some say the Great American Novel is Huckleberry Finn, some say it's The Jungle, some say it's The Great Gatsby. -- Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita".
- ^ Jameson, Frederick (1996). The Seeds of Time. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. pp. 214 pages. "These are familiar features of daily life in the super state from which, it should be noted, high modernism in the United States - in theory and in practice alike, fifties aestheticism organized around Pound and Henry James and Wallace Stevens and the New Criticism - was in desperate flight; of our great modern writers, only Nabokov handled this kind of material, in Lolita, which thereby at once became The Great American Novel,- but of course he was a foreigner to begin with." (Page 146-147).
- ^ "To Kill a Mockingbird". mahalo.com. Retrieved 2010-10-19. "Though originally dismissed, the book gathered a great deal of popularity and success throughout its lifetime, becoming the symbol of the "Great American Novel."
- ^ Puente, Maria (2010-07-08). "'To Kill a Mockingbird': Endearing, enduring at 50 years". USA Today. "It is Lee's only book and one of the handful that could earn the title of Great American Novel."
- ^ Bowden, Charles. (Introduction to) Kesey, Ken. Sometimes a Great Notion (2006) Penguin.
- ^ Marshall, John (2001-11-16), Ken Kesey's true legacy is 'Sometimes a Great Notion', Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- ^ Ruch, Alan (April 1, 1997). "Introduction to GR". The Modern World. Retrieved 2010-09-22. "It is the Great American Novel come at last, a postmodern masterpiece."
- ^ Weisenburger, Steven (2006). A Gravity's Rainbow Companion. University of Georgia Press. p. 412. "Thomas Pynchon's big book quickly confirmed him as one of the few novelists of unprecedented genius to emerge in the postwar era. Here was the Great American Novel at last. The reviewers' favorite comparisons were to Moby Dick and Ulysses."
- ^ "San Francisco Review of Books". "Gaddis has written the long-awaited great American novel... A beautiful book and a brilliant author."
- ^ http://oyc.yale.edu/english/american-novel-since-1945/content/transcripts/transcript-18-cormac-mccarthy-blood-meridian-cont.
- ^ http://www.thenewcanon.com/infinte_jest.html
- ^ Morton, Brian. "Scotland on Sunday". "Pynchon's finest work yet...if anyone is still looking for the Great American Novel then this may well be it."
Further reading
- Brown, Herbert R. "The Great American Novel." American Literature 7.1 (1935): 1–14.
- Knox, George. "The Great American Novel: Final Chapter." American Quarterly 21.4 (1969): 667–682.